Best friend, chili, ice cream, Edward, Ohio. Every day should be this hard.

Thursday, February 25

Mom of the Year Award

OHMommy over at Classy Chaos thinks that she's in the running for the Worst Mom of the Year award. Seriously, you should go read this post. A recap: she sent her daughter to preschool in a cheerleading costume. One that her daughter is obsessed with. What parent hasn't done that?

(Seriously, Sam has this pair of baseball pants that a friend gave him that he wears every. freaking. day. and I hate them with a passion that burns hotter than a thousand suns. However, I let him wear them because ... well, it's easier than trying to reason with the child. Or burning the pants. But I digress ...)

But OHMommy forgot that it was school picture day. And that there may or may not have been some oatmeal on said cheerleading costume. She's fairly mortified, and acting like the world is ending. :)

(I say this with love, because she makes me laugh all the time when I check out her blog. You should spend some time perusing her archives.)

But dearest Pauline, wonderful OHMommy, I have news for you. You might be classy, you might be a tad obsessed with stilettos in a slightly unhealthy way, you might speak several languages ... but you, my dear, are an amateur. You have no idea.

But I do. Because at book club last night, we got to talking. My sweet friend Melanie, who introduced me to the book club five years ago, is someone I met at a Bible study I did when Sam and Evie were little. Melanie was in my small group one year, then was the teacher for one of the children's classes ... the class with Sam and Evie.

Our story takes place about the time that Evie was learning how to dress herself, and she was very proud of it. Didn't matter that she would put on a pink shirt with some sequins and some green pants and maybe a blue sock and an orange sock. With ugly brown shoes. Heaven help the person who tried to coordinate her once her mind was set.

(I don't know why she owned green pants. Looking back, I find that to be ... well ... wrong. No one should own green pants, and I have no excuse for letting them enter my house. I apologize.)

So we were running late one morning (yes, shocking, I know!!) and finally everyone was dressed and out the door and in their car seats and buckled and snapped and strapped and we were driving across town to Bible study. I ended up only being abut five minutes late to small group after dropping off the kids and running across the church grounds.

I think that was the year we were studying Esther, but I don't remember. I'm sure everything went well, and that I enjoyed the lesson that day (as I generally did; it was a great Bible study), and learned stuff. Chatted a bit with my aunt and some friends, and went back to the kids building to pick up Sam and Evie and head home. When I got over there, Melanie rushed me at the door and dragged my ass over to a corner very discretely pulled my aside.

"What's up, Mel?" I inquired in my usual, carefree tone of voice.

"Brea, your daughter isnnkelwlem mme mumble kjwlr wenbjwrhw."

"Huh?"

"It's Evie. She mmwejkwr mumble wejlrwe."

"Melanie, speak up. You're freaking me out! What did Evie do?"

"Brea, she didn't do anything. She isn't wearing any underwear!"

(silence)

(crickets begin to chirp)

"Huh?"

(At this point, I should probably mention Evie's outfit for the day. Was she wearing pants? No. A long skirt? Notsomuch. Shorts, even? Of course not. Evie was wearing a cute flared short denim skirt with a pink bow on it, a green shirt, and red sandals. The outfit is forever seared into my memory, believe me.)

"Yeah, Brea. She went over to play with the dollhouse, picked up a doll, and I could see all the way to China if you know what I mean."

"Oh. Um. Hmmmm. Well, shit."

"Yeah."

And then it dawned on me ... "OH MY GOODNESS! I brought my daughter to Bible study in a short skirt with no flipping underwear?!?!"

"Yeah, Brea."

"Melanie, I've never done this before, I swear. Thank you so much for not turning me in! Wait, you didn't turn me in, did you?"

She hadn't turned me in. And now, it's really, really, really funny. Everyone (especially the gals without kids) got a really big kick out of the story last night.

So there's a few lessons you can learn from all this:

1. As Pauline has taught us, pay attention to school picture day. It's probably best to mark it on a very visible calendar. In red ink.

2. The things that mortify us at the time, make us pray for the earth to open and swallow us whole ... in the long run, it's ok. More than ok, it's usually pretty damn funny.

And last, but certainly not least ...

3. Always do an underwear check before walking out the door. Especially if you're headed to Bible study.